I recently purchased the phoenix hexapod and i’m currently assembly it. I had a few ideas of modifications for the phoenix. I want to add a head with movable claws and with at least 2DOF and a tail that also has at least 2DOF and would be big enough to put the BB2 and the SSC-32 inside. i was doing some drawing and i soon realized that there is no way i would be able to fit either of these inside the front and back servos and still giving the phoenix it’s full range of motion, without doing some modifying of the body.
Now i pose these questions:
Does modifying the shape of the phoenix affect how it will walk using one of the codes people have written? If so, is it easy to make it so the code fits my robot’s size?
Also, would adding these appendages be to heavy for my phoenix?(I have 18 645 servos attached)
And I’m fairly new to programming so would it be very difficult to add the code for the head and tail?
Please post if your able to answer any of the questions or if you yourself has made modifications to the phoenix body or code.
Hi Sam,
Congratz with your phoenix!
I suppose you are using the phoenix code. You do need to make some changes if you are gonna make a body with different dimensions. The good thing is that the are all easy to configure in the top part of the code.
[code] ;--------------------------------------------------------------------
;[BODY DIMENSIONS]
CoxaLength con 29 ;Length of the Coxa [mm]
FemurLength con 76 ;Length of the Femur [mm]
TibiaLength con 106 ;Lenght of the Tibia [mm]
CoxaAngle con 60 ;Default Coxa setup angle
RFOffsetX con -43 ;Distance X from center of the body to the Right Front coxa
RFOffsetZ con -82 ;Distance Z from center of the body to the Right Front coxa
RMOffsetX con -63 ;Distance X from center of the body to the Right Middle coxa
RMOffsetZ con 0 ;Distance Z from center of the body to the Right Middle coxa
RROffsetX con -43 ;Distance X from center of the body to the Right Rear coxa
RROffsetZ con 82 ;Distance Z from center of the body to the Right Rear coxa
LFOffsetX con 43 ;Distance X from center of the body to the Left Front coxa
LFOffsetZ con -82 ;Distance Z from center of the body to the Left Front coxa
LMOffsetX con 63 ;Distance X from center of the body to the Left Middle coxa
LMOffsetZ con 0 ;Distance Z from center of the body to the Left Middle coxa
LROffsetX con 43 ;Distance X from center of the body to the Left Rear coxa
LROffsetZ con 82 ;Distance Z from center of the body to the Left Rear coxa
;--------------------------------------------------------------------[/code]
The phoenix is not designed to carry a lot of additional weight. The phoenix legs are designed with a single femur plate. Before adding additional weight you should consider to add additional femur plates with ball bearings to prevent the servo axis from having to carry all the weight.
You need to study Inverse Kinematics and the code before you can add a head and tail. I don’t know how experienced you are but I can tell it isn’t a one day job. 
Xan
Alright looks like I have some research to do. Thanks for the help.